Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 | Page 9

the cause they
pretended to support. However, none, he was persuaded, would deny
that it was highly expedient to know the extent of our alliance with

Powers who had acted so recently in the manner he had represented,
and to have the object of our pursuit in this war distinctly known. The
Minister may perhaps in future come down to the House, and say he is
sorry, but it has become highly necessary to interfere with the power of
Britain farther, as the crowned ladies and gentlemen of Europe cannot
agree about the partition of France, or that such a disposition is about to
take place, that we shall be worse off than if we had let France remain
as it was. Those who feared the attachment of men to French principles,
argued wrong. From the effect of the experiment they would never be
popular: nothing but crimes and misery swelled all the accounts from
that country. If the peasant had been represented happy and contented,
dancing in his vineyard, surrounded with a prosperous and innocent
family, if such accounts had come, the tidings would have been gladly
received. At present we hear of nothing but want and carnage--very
unattracting indeed. More danger, he thought, arose from a blind
attachment to power, which gains security from the many evils
abounding in France. On the same principle that Prussia divided Poland,
he contended, they might act here. They declared a prevalence of
French principles existed in Poland: His Majesty's proclamation asserts
the same here, and is therefore, in this sense, an invitation to come and
take care of us. Could such despots love the free constitution of this
country? On the contrary, he was persuaded that, upon the very same
principle that Poland was divided, and Dantzic and Thorn subjugated,
England itself might be made an object for the same fate as soon as it
became convenient to the confederates to make the experiment. He
would defy any man to show the principle upon which a difference
could exist with regard to us and the other sacrificed countries, in the
wishes and the desires of the combined Powers. But supposing this to
be out of all question, and that this country had nothing to dread in that
respect, and that all Europe had nothing to look to but the
extermination of French principles, how would the present prospect of
our success then appear? Could we entertain so vain a hope (indeed he
was astonished to hear it even hinted) that the French, who had all the
winter been lying in the snow at some periods, and wading up to their
necks in water at others, in an enemy's country, fighting for their rights,
will, in their own, submit to give them up in a mild season? The
thought was too absurd, and the expectation too extravagant, to be

harboured by a man possessed of a spark of rationality.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
FEBRUARY 5, 1795
THE PRUSSIAN SUBSIDY
Mr. Sheridan said, that upon a former occasion he and another
honourable gentleman had endeavoured to get some information of the
services performed by the King of Prussia during the last campaign, in
consequence of his engagements with this country. Some returns had
lately been laid on the table on that subject, but these contained no
information. It appeared that the King of Prussia had received from this
country the enormous sum of twelve hundred thousand pounds, without
having rendered it even the smallest service. He thought it therefore
necessary, previous to the discussion of the imperial loan, to come to
some resolution with respect to this conduct on the part of His Prussian
Majesty. It was certainly no argument against granting a loan to the
Emperor, that the King of Prussia had violated his faith. But this
circumstance ought certainly to enforce on the House the necessity of
caution, and induce them to take some step in the present instance that
might operate as a warning, with respect to future transactions of the
same sort. His Majesty had stated in his message that he had received
from the Emperor the strongest assurances of a disposition to make the
greatest exertions, provided he should be assisted by a loan of four
millions from this country. He understood, if he could rely upon the
credit of public statements, that in another country the Parliament had
been told of the absolute determination of His Majesty to guarantee this
loan. This was a language which he considered as very unbecoming,
when addressed to the representatives of the nation, and as highly
improper in Ministers, who were of course responsible for whatever
proceeded from the Throne. Before such a determination had been
expressed, he should have wished to have had something also like a
positive determination from His Imperial